


Sadderdaze

by Orca2



Category: N/A - Fandom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-01-31 11:11:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Orca2/pseuds/Orca2





	1. Chapter 1

Alice walked back and forth down the parking bumpers like a balance beam, waiting for her parents to come and pick her up. She was always nearly the last one to leave, with all her afterschool clubs and student council and all that. By now it was 5:30 and the sun had nearly set, the sky a pleasant shade of purple. 

It was always a little eerie being alone like this, since the usually bustling school entryway was dead silent. 

She whipped her head around when the silence broke with the creaking sound of the school gates being pushed open. Her expression of surprise quickly melted into one of dread. The person at the gate stared back blankly. It was none other than Mason, a senior who seemed to find her very annoying, and managed to always poke holes in everything she did, despite the fact they share no classes, since she's a freshman. It's like he sprints across campus for the sole purpose of barraging her during passing period. Not only that, but he says incredibly strange things and seemed to revel in being able to make everyone in a room feel awkward. 

Alice had AP classes with him and a lot of the other seniors after school, who apparently found his theatrics equally strange, but didn't seem to care as much. They were probably used to it. 

He raised an eyebrow in her direction before taking his phone out and leaning against the wall. She'd guess he was probably just trying to contact his ride. Glad he was going to leave her alone, she continued walking back and forth down the parking bumpers. 

"You cold?" Alice nearly tripped over her own feet. She glanced towards Mason. "Huh?" She choked out, sounding a lot more nervous than she'd like. He shrugged. "Just wondering, you don't have a jacket." His eyes were round and a warm color of brown, which she could tell because he was looking her dead in the eye with them. 

"No, I'm fine." Alice said quickly. The silence was now less eerie and more... awkward and tense. She did everything she could to avoid looking in his general direction. Coming to the conclusion that she probably looked pretty childish walking up and down the beams like this, she jumped off, and stood on the opposite side of the gate as him, trying to distract herself with the cuff of her shirt. Damn, did she wish she had brought a phone to pretend to be occupied with.

"So... you went to Vail Middle School, right?" He did it again. He's tried to start a conversation not once, but twice! _Why in the world is he talking to me?_ "Um, yeah... but only for 6th grade. I was homeschooled for 7th and 8th." Alice's voice wavered. "Cool," he said bluntly. "I went there too."

Now this actually piqued her interest, because she had yet to meet anyone else who went to her middleschool. All of her old friends had gone off to fancy Academies and Charters, so she was all alone in this unfamiliar school. 

"Oh... that's nice." She said, a statement that almost sounded like a question, like she's not entirely sure that it is so. 

Alice tested a glance in his direction. When she had to tilt her chin up to just to meet his eyes, it only added to her growing nervousness. She felt more comfortable when she was standing on the bumper, where his foot and a half height difference was less apparent. 

_Mom, now would be a wonderful time to show up..._

Mason was still watching her thoughtfully, in the same way he had when he had asked when she was cold. Maybe this was just an elaborate set-up for a joke, he's done that sort of thing before. And Alice was pretty sure he was in one of the acting classes. She shuffled her feet, unsure of what to do. 

"Have any friends from there?" Mason asked casually, propping his arm on the gate. "Not really, I didn't keep in contact." She felt like it wasn't the best idea to be answering so honestly, but it was too late at this point.

"So you don't have any friends?" He smiled with a tilt of his head. "Aww." Alice switched into defensive mode, hurt and a little shocked.

"I'm more focused on school anyways." Mason shook his head with that same sardonic smile.

"That's no good, you'll turn into a hermit with no social life." Alice can't help but roll her eyes. Mason paused, for once averting his gaze. "You know, there's a movie theater across the street from here, you should go with me— and my friends sometime." 

She blinked. And then blinked again. _What?_

"It'll give you some much needed socialization," he teased. 

"Oh, I–"

Alice was certain she had now become as red as a tomato.

"Er I don't think–"

_Did he just ask what I think he asked?_

"I just–"

**HONK.**

She jumped back, heart beating a million miles a minute. 

Her mom waved at her from the car.

Alice turned around, stuttered out a quiet "bye", and ran off to jump in to the passenger side of the car, and sunk down in her seat as her mom pulled out of the school driveway with the brightest blush she's ever worn. 


	2. Chapter 2

Sage poked around half-heatedly at his bowl of soggy cereal, cheek propped up on his palm. _"No elbows on the table!"_ his mother certainly would've scolded, had she been there, and had she for once decided not to spend every waking moment of her life occupied with something productive. Even on weekends, like today, when she had work off.

The unappetizing squishing sounds of incredibly tasteless Raisin-Bran flakes beneath his spoon only aided in further souring his mood. He got up to empty the milk into the sink, cringing as he used the spoon to keep the cereal lumps from falling into the drain. It was a pretty lame attempt at breakfast but well, at least she thought of him.

He thought grimly of all the AP homework that needed to be finished today, and considered stalling a little longer in the kitchen. Throwing away the remaining cereal, holding it sideways over the trashcan and watching with a blank stare as it slid down the bowl and plopped into the trash below, he put it in the dishwasher and headed upstairs. 

His room was clearly far too small to accomidate the stacks on top of stacks of textbooks his school supplied him with. There was some piled on his desk, others shoved into his bedside drawr, a few in his closet. His flimsy wooden desk was curved inwards at the corner where he kept them, caving in from the weight. Running his fingertips across the desk's surface, he could feel the indentations from when he had written with enough pressure to mark the table beneath him. A strange internal urge persuaded him to put it off for just a moment or so more, to indulge in some of his hobbies or mindless youtube videos. With a sigh, he sat down in his squeaky chair, and clicked the end of his red ball-point ben.

Six or so hours later, which wasn't as miserable as it would seem, getting started was always the most difficult part, he looked back at his 10 or so pages of notes and completed homework with a sort of relief. He cracked his knuckles, which were numb from doing so much writing, and decided that was probably good enough. From the window above his desk, and the shadows that trailed off to the left, it would seem to be an hour or two after noon. Still way to early for his mom to come home.

His AP Bio notes were pretty much gibberish to him, and probably only meant something to people who had PhDs in the subject. “In order for the aminoacyl-tRNA enzymes to make tRNA active, the enzyme must use ATP to phosphorylate the amino acid which will cause a shape change in the active site of...” blah blah blah, his head hurt just thinking about it. It didn't really matter to anyone that he understood it, just that he could regurgitate the sentences in the correct order. That's all that there was to any subject, really. 

Sage rested his forehead on the cool surface of the table, which was only slightly splintered. The work was pretty overwhelming after slacking off so much in middleschool, and showing up in the morning he was always reminded of all the stupid shit he did in Freshman year, and the embarrassing, irreversible mistakes that are going to follow him around for the next three years. Sometimes he wishes he could crawl into the recesses of his mind and hide from this imposing school and its constant presence in his life. 

No matter what he does, because of those unproductive middleschool years, he can't help but always feel a couple of steps behind everyone else, always struggling to catch up. 

Stretching as maybe a subliminal way to distract himself from the self-deprecating thoughts running through his head, he pushes himself out of his seat. He reflexively picks up his phone on his way to his bed and scrolls through his contacts to stop at the name "Alice". 

"you wanna go do something" he messages without a second thought, chewing on his nail nervously. He remembers back in Freshman year, when the concept of going places without any parents was first introduced to him, and he considered it to be really cool and dangerous, which is a mindset that seems incredibly dorky to him now. 

The three dots that immidiately pop up on the screen don't come as much of a surprise to him, since Alice is constantly on her phone.

"where"

He stops for a second.  

"Library? Zoo? Park?" All things within walking distance, because while he could technically drive, his mom had the car.

"the zoos okay" 

"are you talking about going right now?"

He glanced out his window to try and guess the time, before he realized his phone has a clock that says '3:39'. It wouldn't be too long that they got to stay there, since the zoo closed pretty soon. 

"yeah right now" He typed as he started making his way out of his room. He was already pretty much dressed, he just needed his jacket, and probably his keys...

His phone buzzed as a notification that said "okay" popped up on the screen, which he glanced at before turning it off. He hurried down the stairs, skipping a step each time. He opened the door, which chimed as he did so because there were little golden bells hanging from the doorknob, christmas decorations that his dad put up a couple weeks ago, and locked the door behind him on his way out.


	3. Chapter 3

"Cколько часов вы изучали для этого финала?" Alice's Russian homework glared at her, demanding a response to the question on the dotted line below. 

She could feel herself grow cold after managing to translate the sentence by simply plugging the words into google translate one after the other, something her Russian teacher had explicitly stated they should be past at this point. 

"Нуль," she thought to herself gloomily, closing the packet with the intention of taking a short break. She groaned, leaning back in her seat.

_"Oh, Alice, why didn't you pick a more useful language, like Spanish?"_

_"Don't you know the Russian language has like 7 cases?"_

_"They say it takes at least 4 years to be fluent."_  

Go on, she's heard it all. Picking Russian for her World Language class was a terrible idea, _point taken_. Finals had her running around in circles and pulling all-nighters practically every night, and this class had been put on the backburner. Mostly because she was avoiding it. Then, of course, quarterly grades came in and surprise! Russian language was a C-. If she was going to miss out on being on honor roll this semester, that class would be the reason. 

Outside there was nothing but darkness and cheap flourescent parking lot light, which blocked out any stars. She had no idea how late it was and had no intention to check. Her hands were trembling from what was maybe her... fifth cup of coffee? Somewhere along the line she stopped keeping track. 

Running her hand through her hair, she couldn't help but frown. It was tangled and greasy between her fingers, even though she had washed it yesterday. Honestly, she couldn't go 20 minutes without brushing it or it'd turn into a rat's nest. It'd been her worst insecurity since the 4th grade, and she'd considered on several occasions just cutting it all off.

Alice swiveled around her desk chair, feeling light-headed enough to faint when she got up. She walked over to the mirror on her dresser, gazing at the stringy black mess atop her head. It certianly held her back from presenting herself the way she would like, which is, dignified, responsible, collected... Kind of hard to do that when you always look like a child whose just gotten out of bed. 

With a tired glance back at her Russian homework, eyes heavy and unfocused, she made a very impulsive decision right then and there. Which is not as uncommon an occurance as she'd much like to believe.

It was the weekend. She could finish it on Sunday.

Grabbing the scissors from her desk drawer, she marched into the only bathroom in her apartment. 

 

_Snip... Snip... Snip... Snip...._

With every cut she began to feel a bit more wary. She was no proffessional, in fact she had never even cut her own hair before. It just, didn't ever look even enough and it kept on getting shorter and shorter as she tried to fix it. And she had no idea what the back looked like.

Soon enough, there was nothing more than about three inches of hair on her head, and piles of black tresses strewn about on the sink's white surface. And then the regret set in. Staring back at her own reflection, she came to realize why people say humans feel losses more significantly than gains. Picking up the mess she had made with her own hair, hair that would take years and years to grow back to it's original length, she tried to bite back any tears as to not wake her parents up. When she was finished, Alice locked herself in her room and dropped onto the bed, exhausted and emotionally drained. She hid herself under her blankets and sobbed herself to sleep.

 

The next morning (it was actually 3 in the afternoon) she woke up to her phone buzzing. She grabbed it from her bedside table and pulled it under the covers with her. When she turned it on, she squinted at the bright screen, eyes not having adjusted to light. 


	4. kill a mockingbird

_Pretentious arrogant bitch thinks she's so fucking talented,_ Claire thought with clenched teeth. She kept her eyes fixed on her paper, head low, not wanting to bring attention to her obvious disdain for her classmate. And also, in a partial attempt to tune out Olivia's words to keep her anger from overflowing like a boiling pot.

Olivia droned on, completely oblivious, reciting the writing she was so utterly proud of with utmost seriousness, while pronouncing every "s" with an unabashed lisp. 

There was no way in hell Claire could look up, because she already knew the kind of look she would be wearing. A smug gaze beneath lidded eyes, dramatic yet languid gestures. Oh, it made her violent. 

Watching her teacher nod with his hand to his chin, eyebrows furrowed thoughtfully, was almost too much to bear. Just how this bitch managed to entrance the entire class with her cringy spiel was beyond her. 

Claire gripped her red pen beneath her desk, clicking the end aggressively. Her mind was interference and white noise, though she was hyper-aware of her surroundings. The edge of  the wooden chair which dug into her legs, her eyes which ached from glasses with an outdated prescription. She shifted, the rough material of her jeans rubbed together where her thighs met. Everything was too loud, too much.

Stunted applause, between the pulsing in her head, made her jaw clench further.

"Claire?" Mr. Fullerton glanced over at her from where he stood, "You're next."

Claire looked up with a half-hearted smile stretched across her lips, and shook her head. Mr. Fullerton, almost not catching this, continued to set up the makeshift stage for the next performance before the connotative meaning of the gesture processed. He paused in his action, tilting his head in her direction. "So, you won't be sharing?" Claire held up her hands dismissively, "I just– changed my mind is all."

Mr. Fullerton gave a look in Olivia's direction, pensive, probably assuming she decided against it because she didn't want to follow up a strong performance. Exactly what she didn't want him to infer.

 _Don't fucking look down on me,_ she wanted to scream.

_Is this all I'm ever going to amount to? Known as nothing more than the second-rate version of her? I get it, I fucked up, bury me and get it over with, there's no recovering anyways. My life is doomed._

_I sometimes imagine my nails catching on the smooth surface of her eyes, the feeling of her bones snapping beneath my palms, drawing blood until my fingertips are covered in it, vainly thinking that if I get my urges out I'll be able to think rationally again._

_But no, I've been reduced to a rabid animal that wants nothing more in life but to tear her apart._


End file.
